Old/New Testament
A Song of Victory
26 In that day this song shall be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city;
He appoints walls
and bulwarks for security.
2 Open the gates,
that the righteous nation may enter,
the one who remains faithful.
3 You will keep him in perfect peace,
whose mind is stayed on You,
because he trusts in You.
4 Trust in the Lord forever,
for in God the Lord we have an everlasting rock.
5 For He brings down those who dwell on high,
the lofty city; He lays it low; He lays it low,
even to the ground;
He brings it even to the dust.
6 The foot shall tread it down,
even the feet of the poor
and the steps of the needy.
7 The way of the righteous is smooth;
O Upright One, make the path of the righteous level.
8 In the way of Your judgments, O Lord,
we have waited for You eagerly;
the desire of our souls is Your name,
even Your memory.
9 With my soul I have desired You in the night;
my spirit within me seeks You diligently;
for when Your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10 Though favor is shown to the wicked,
yet he will not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness he deals unjustly
and does not perceive the majesty of the Lord.
11 Lord, Your hand is lifted up,
but they do not see it.
They see Your zeal for the people and are put to shame;
the fire of Your enemies shall devour them.
12 Lord, You will ordain peace for us,
for You also have done all our works for us.
13 O Lord our God, other lords besides You have had dominion over us,
but through You alone we confess Your name.
14 The dead shall not live;
the departed spirits shall not rise.
Therefore, You have punished and destroyed them
and made all remembrance of them to perish.
15 You have increased the nation, O Lord,
You have increased the nation;
You are glorified;
You have extended all the borders of the land.
16 Lord, in trouble they have sought You;
they poured out a prayer
when Your chastening was on them.
17 Like a woman with child, who is in pain and cries out in her pangs
when she draws near the time of her delivery,
so have we been in Your sight, O Lord.
18 We have been with child, we have been in pain,
we have, as it were, brought forth wind;
we have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth,
nor were the inhabitants of the world born.
19 Your dead shall live,
their corpses shall arise.
Awake and sing,
you who dwell in dust,
for your dew is as the dew of the dawn,
and the earth shall give birth to the departed spirits.
20 Come, my people, enter your chambers,
and shut your doors behind you;
hide for a little while
until the indignation is over.
21 For the Lord comes out of His place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
the earth also shall disclose her bloodshed
and shall cover her slain no more.
The Deliverance of Israel
27 In that day
the Lord with His fierce and great
and strong sword shall punish
Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
and He shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.
2 In that day:
Sing of it! A vineyard of red wine.
3 I, the Lord, am its keeper;
I water it every moment;
lest anyone damage it,
I protect it night and day.
4 I have no fury.
Should someone give Me briers and thorns in battle,
then I would step on them,
I would burn them fully.
5 Or let him rely on My strength;
let him make peace with Me;
let him make peace with Me.
6 In the days to come Jacob shall take root;
Israel shall blossom and bud
and shall fill the whole world with fruit.
7 Has He struck them,
as He struck those who struck them?
Or like the slaughter of His slain,
have they been slain?
8 You fought with them by banishing them, by driving them away.
He has expelled them
on the day of the east wind with His fierce wind.
9 Through this, therefore, the iniquity of Jacob shall be forgiven,
and this will be the full price of the removal of his sin:
when he makes all the stones of the altar
as chalkstones that are pulverized,
when the groves and incense altars
shall not stand.
10 For the fortified city shall be desolate,
a homestead forlorn and forsaken like a wilderness;
there the calf shall graze,
and there it shall lie down
and eat its branches.
11 When its boughs are withered, they are broken off;
the women come and make a fire with them,
for they are not a people of understanding;
therefore, their Maker will not have mercy on them,
and their Creator will show them no grace.
12 In that day the Lord shall thresh from the channel of the River[a] to the stream of Egypt, and you shall be gathered one by one, O sons of Israel. 13 And in that day the great trumpet shall be blown, and those who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria and the outcasts in the land of Egypt shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.
Christian Humility and Christ’s Humility
2 If there is any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any compassion and mercy, 2 then fulfill my joy and be like-minded, having the same love, being in unity with one mind. 3 Let nothing be done out of strife or conceit, but in humility let each esteem the other better than himself. 4 Let each of you look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Let this mind be in you all, which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, being in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.
7 But He emptied Himself,
taking upon Himself the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in the form of a man,
He humbled Himself
and became obedient to death,
even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God highly exalted Him
and gave Him the name which is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.[a]
Shining as Lights in the World
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but so much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For God is the One working in you, both to will and to do His good pleasure.
14 Do all things without murmuring and disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and harmless, sons of God, without fault, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world. 16 Hold forth the word of life that I may rejoice on the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. 17 Yes, and even if I am offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I take delight and rejoice with you all. 18 For this reason you also take delight and rejoice with me.
Timothy and Epaphroditus
19 I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly to you, that I also may be of good comfort when I get word concerning you. 20 For I have no one like-minded, who will sincerely care for your welfare. 21 For all seek their own, not the things of Christ Jesus. 22 But you know of his proven worth, that as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel. 23 Therefore I hope to send him soon after my situation is resolved. 24 But I trust in the Lord that I, myself, shall also come shortly.
25 Yet I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, who is my brother and companion in labor, fellow soldier, your messenger, and he who ministered to my necessity. 26 For he longed after you all and was filled with heaviness, because you heard that he was sick. 27 Indeed he was sick, near death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him, but also on me, lest I should have had sorrow upon sorrow. 28 Therefore I sent him the more eagerly, that when you see him again, you may rejoice and I may be less sorrowful. 29 So receive him in the Lord with all joy. And hold such ones in high regard, 30 because for the work of Christ he was near death, not regarding his life, endeavoring to make up for your lack of service toward me.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.